Solo is quite the treat in this, I have to say. I loved McCoy's 'not another one'. Nice job with them getting where the action is! You have a great way of keeping up the pace through lots of high speed moments.

Kirk fired his phaser purposely near Harrison who saw his new nemesis reappear. His rage unleashed with a flurry of phaser rifle fire that killed every remaining Klingon in the room. Harrison wanted this to be personnel; just between himself and Kirk. Then, suddenly Nyota fired a blast that whizzed by his ear. He glared once again at the fact that he was at least outnumbered two to one, but of course, he had faced larger odds than that in just the last 15 minutes alone. So, he merely walked purposely towards Kirk and flicked his weapon to the side.

"C'mon, Kirk!" he menancingly spat at his opponent, "You know that we don't require weapons or others to do this battle between you and I."

Kirk motioned for Nyota to stand down and approached Harrison. The two stood mere meters away from each other eyeing their opponent for their particular weakness. Kirk swung first and Harrison easily ducked his swing. He then grabbed Kirk's hair and punched him squarely in the face causing blood to spout out of his re-broken nose. Kirk barely escaped another swing and slammed both of his fists into Harrison's sides to no avail. Harrison immediately swung around planting Kirk this time in the chest as Kirk stumbled to the ground.

"Admit it, Kirk, I'm better," Harrison glared at his opponent.

"Better at what?" Kirk teased him knowing that he was at the moment losing the battle.

Kirk motioned to Nyota again who immediately raised her phaser and stunned Harrison who fell to the ground unconscious.

"Thanks for that," Kirk graciously thanked Nyota, "It does help to cheat sometimes."

Kirk immediately called Bones and Sulu forward and had Bones inject Harrison with a hypo-spray of more medicine to keep him asleep for awhile.

"Let's get back aboard the "Millenium Dragon" and go home to try this bastard," Kirk ordered, "I want him tested for everything," he ordered Bones specifically.

***

As they approached Earth orbit, they saw the Enterprise will Admiral Pike awaiting them. Pike had ordered Kirk to bring Harrison aboard the Enterprise once again, so they took a shuttle from the "Millenium Dragon" and looked out at the darkness of space between themselves and the Enterprise. They entered the shuttlebay and placed Harrison once again in the Brig. Pike walked up as Security was all around the cell.

"I must now tell you what we have here," Pike announced, "There is a part of the Federation that was put into place once Nero destroyed the Kelvin. This secret operations and technological force was named Section 31. They were tasked with growing enhanced humans to deal with future threats. Using genetically enhanced humans, they trained them in all areas of Star Fleet and even commissioned a specific ship for them to command. This ship is now on the way here. We have but mere hours before it attacks to rescue their Captain, Mr. Harrison here."

"So what do we do now?" Kirk inquired wanting to know what Pike was going to do.

"We stand no chance against this ship, Jim," Pike told him seriously, "It's a Dreadnought Class vessel that is over four times as large as the Enterprise."

"The bigger they are the harder they fall," Kirk gloated with pride, "I'll take it out, just give me a chance to."

"No," Pike simply stated, "You don't understand, Jim. They are coming to destroy us. There will be no negotiations, no call to stand down. Section 31 has usurped the Federation's control over them and have declared war on us."

"So, what other choice do we have but to fight then?" Kirk wondered openly, "Surely, you don't want us to surrender to them, do you?"

"That might have to be an option if that is what they want, but I seriously doubt they would consider it since they have failed to acknowledge any of our hails," Pike told him, "I will command the Enterprise into its' final battle; one that I'm sure will be short and deadly to everyone involved. I am asking only for volunteers for those that want to stay for the fight, but I will not order anyone to do so."

"You know that I will fight until the very end," Kirk told him truthfully, "And I'm sure that everyone else will as well."

"Thanks," Pike told him succinctly, "We're going to need all the help that we can get."

Kirk whispered something in Spock's ear and then he commenced the ship-wide communication system.

"This is Kirk," he announced simply, "We are going to engage one of our own ships which has gone rogue; anyone that wants to leave can do so, but for those who stay, we will win this, I assure you."

"This is Admiral Pike," Pike announced, "Despite Kirk's previous statement, I cannot guarantee that anyone will survive this battle. We will do our best though to stop them. All Hands to Battle Stations, we will be engaging our adversary in one hour."

Intense action is always a great way to make the story better and more exciting.

***

Gripping Darkness Bellows

The USS Vengeance was the latest and greatest Dreadnaught-Class vessel that Starfleet ever commissioned. Of course, it was with the utmost of secrecy that it was even built in the first place. Section 31 had unlimited resources available to equip the ship with the latest up-to-date and even secret technologies that they had gathered.

Putting it all into place and assigning a Captain to it was easy since they had raised Harrison from childhood along with his crew to specifically follow his orders alone; Starfleet had no reign or claim at all on the vessel. It was Section 31's to command and do as they pleased with and they had successfully repelled vast Romulan forces that had tried to attack the Federation once Nero had perished.

The Romulans had failed miserably against such a vessel and those who still supported Nero's cause quickly dispersed out of the Romulan system and so many failures. Harrison had personally commanded the vessel for over five years; so he was in effect more senior than any Captain except for Admiral Pike in the current state of the Federation after Harrison had destroyed the fleet that had guarded Earth.

Admiral Pike stood at the brig cell and studied his opponent; yes, even though he was locked up in the Brig, Pike knew that it would only be a matter of time before he would be facing him as an adversary.

"You know that you could stop this," Pike tried to plead his cause to Harrison, "Section 31 cannot be above the Federation."

"Oh, but we are!" Harrison spat out, "And we will continue to be your enemy. As long as I breathe I will torment your pitiful Federation to my last heart beat."

"I will have no choice but to fire upon the ship once it arrives then," Pike told him plainly, "Once they are in range, we will open fire."

"Go ahead," Harrison practically begged him to do so, "You're weapons won't even make a scratch on the Vengeance."

Pike knew that they was no purpose to further delaying the events that were going to unfold. He flipped a lever on the side of the Brig causing Harrison to drop to the ground from the painful bursts that only Brig prisoners could here.

"I'll make sure that you die first for that!" Harrison gritted and shouted through his clenched teeth, "You will suffer I promise you!"

"So be it," Pike simply stated as he flipped the lever one more time to send Harrison to the ground writhing in pain, "I hope that you enjoy your medicine."

***

The Vengeance approached at a slow and steady pace almost daring the Enterprise to make the first move. A voice came over the intercom by Pike's chair.

"Hello, Admiral," it started, "You have three minutes to transport our Captain to our ship. Failure to comply will result in your complete and utter destruction!"

Pike looked at everyone on the Bridge and then flipped on the ship-wide communication system, "This is Pike. Start attack pattern Delta. Fire!"

The ship unleashed volley after volley of photon torpedo fire on the vessel along with multiple phasers firing.

"We are vastly out-powered by them and our weapons have no effect against their shields," Spock dutifully answered, "We are in essence a sitting duck firing pea shooters at them."

The Vengeance commenced its attack on the Enterprise as the ship rocked from the volleys that tore through the shields like they were mere paper. Red Alerts glared across the screen from all over the ship.

A/N: Obviously with the movie being out now and if you've seen it then you know what happens. Still, I will keep my story with events occurring as to what I want to tell rather than what was told in the movie. I will still put certain parts from the movie in it, but others I just won't (like Harrison being Khan and Pike dying). Hopefully, you'll still enjoy my story for what it is; action-packed fan fiction at its best.

Darkness' Reign EndsKirk and Scotty ran towards the engine room to try to restore power to the ship as it was spinning uncontrollably towards Earth's gravitational pull. Spock and Uhuru raced towards the shuttlebay once again since piloting any kind of ship right now would be better than none. McCoy and Sulu went to the Brig to ensure knock out Harrison and move him from there to another location since that would be where a boarding party would first search once the ship's shields went down.

The Vengeance stood by patiently awaiting the Enterprise's sheilds to go down which they just did. The boarding party immediately went to the transporter room to beam aboard the Enterprise. Multiple members of the ship went wave after wave aboard the Enterprise to search for their comrade. They went immediately towards the Brig and upon entering realized the trap that they had been brought into as weapons fire dropped one after another member of the boarding party.

They tried to backtrack from their defenseless positions to no avail as gas now entered the Brig rendering them unconscious as they dropped to the floor from the incapaciting fumes that flooded their location. The Enterprise had successfully defended themselves from the attempted return of Harrison to the Vengeance.

***

Kirk and Scotty arrived in Engineering to see that the reactor compartment was flooded with radiation that would kill anyone who attempted to enter the chamber. Knowing that there were no other options available, Kirk struck Scotty unconscious and put him in a chair and activated the seatbelt to strap his friend in. Kirk then entered the chamber and made his way towards the misaligned warp core actuators and commenced to try kicking them back into place.

One kick after another budged the actuators, but it still was not enough as Kirk kicked harder and harder with each try. Finally, he kicked as hard as he could and they locked into place activating the ship's warp engines and once again restoring power. Kirk crawled as best he could back to the area where he first entered the chamber.

Scotty contacted Spock just as he was powering up the shuttlecraft to depart the Enterprise, "Mr. Spock, you need to get here," Scotty solemnly stated.

Spock and Uhuru immediately rushed from the Shuttlebay to just outside of the reactor chamber as they saw Kirk barely alive. Spock went up to the glass and looked upon his friend. He reached for the controls, but Scotty rebuked him.

"There's no way to get him out," Scotty told him, "The ship will not allow the radiation into the rest of the ship until the decontamination process is complete."

"Then he'll die," Spock spoke truthfully knowing the circumstances.

"Yes," Scotty simply stated, "He only has a few moments left."

Spock went up to the glass partition and looked upon the dying Captain, "I am sincerely sorry, Captain," he started eloquently, "I now understand human grief and pain due to the loss of my mother and my planet."

"It's alright Spock," Kirk reassured his friend, "I'm am afraid of dying though," he stated sincerely and truthfully, "That's why I rescued you inside of the volcano though. I did not want you to die."

Spock placed his hand upon the glass in the shape of his familiar greeting and Kirk placed his upon the glass as well. After another few seconds Kirk's hand slipped from the glass as he died.

Spock openly wept as his friend died before him. A rash of anguish, torment, and regret pierced his half-human self as he realized that he had just lost his best friend.

***

The tribble stirred that McCoy had injected some of Harrison's blood into and suddenly Bones knew what he had to do as Kirk laid on the examination table. He transfused Harrison's healing blood into Kirk's thus restoring him back to life.

It would take a few weeks for Kirk to recover back to normal, but once he did, the Enterprise would now embark on its five year mission. Harrison, along with the rest of his compatriots were put back into their cryogenic chambers deep within Starfleet Headquarters. A mysterious visitor placed his hand upon Harrison's chamber.

"You will be avenged," it stated eerily, "When the time is right, we will rightfully control the galaxy and more."

***

Kirk gave the commencement speech as the next class was graduating from Starfleet. He told them that they would be called upon to bring about a renewed exploration of the galaxy. To boldly go where no one has gone before; to strange new worlds, new beginnings and new endings; the search for the unknown beckoning with its loud voice that permanently called people into space.